Stop Measuring Your Worth by Your Work

The average full-time employee in America spends roughly 50 to 70% of their waking hours each week at work or doing work-related activities. This includes preparing for meetings, practicing presentations, getting ready for work, commuting to the office, managing the mental load, and more. Because of the amount of time dedicated to these activities, a person’s work often becomes a piece of their identity.

While this can be highly motivating for some people, it can have detrimental effects on those who tie their sense of self-worth to the work that they do. They judge themselves harshly based on their performance, whether they get the promotion, how much money they make, if they are the top performer at their organization, etc., and when they fall short of the standards that they have set for themselves, it can be a devastating blow to their sense of self.

Growing up, performing well at school was a big part of my identity. I judged myself based on my grades. Because of that, if I did not get the grade that I wanted, I felt like I wasn’t good enough, and I would beat myself up mentally over it. When I would talk to some of my other classmates about how I was feeling, they could not understand why I was so upset because they did not share my mindset. While I may have scored higher than someone else, it wasn’t about the comparison to my classmates. It was about how I perceived myself as a student.

Instead of recognizing the lessons that I learned and everything I did well on, I was focused on where I needed to improve. The key is to have a balance in recognizing opportunities for growth and acknowledging your accomplishments along the way. I eventually came to understand that you can still have high standards for yourself and your work without allowing your work to dictate your sense of worth. This shift in thinking did not happen overnight. To this day, I sometimes have to remind myself that I am more than my outcomes.

Your sense of self has a profound impact on how you view the world. It affects how you occupy your time, how you approach your work, and how you interact with others. While your job may become a piece of your identity, know that you are more than simply what you do. You are continuously learning, growing, and expanding your potential. So stop measuring your worth by your work, and recognize that your job is something you do, but it is not who you are.

-Meghan Slaughter